Interview with Oksana Belousova, Marketing & Listing Advisor
Everything you need to know about promoting your blockchain project online — in our new interview with Oksana Belousova, a marketing specialist and a prominent fundraising consultant.
Oksana, you are a prominent fundraising consultant — could you please tell our readers about your background and career path? How did you first get involved in blockchain-related projects?
Until 2013, I was working in insurance and banking, primarily in sales. Although I have a degree in marketing. In fact, this is a very interesting story about how I learned about blockchain. The first time I heard about Bitcoin, it was while working for a company that specialized in multi-level marketing, or MLM. Back then I had no idea what it was! (Laughs) Unfortunately, I did not spend enough time studying the blockchain technology itself — I was just working in MLM. But when Bitcoin price went up, I realized that the “game” was gaining momentum. Then I decided to focus on learning as much about blockchain as I could.
Could you please tell us more about the projects you are currently working on?
The first ambitious project I am collaborating with and which I want to talk about is SynchroBit. Synchrobit is an innovative hybrid P2P platform for trading digital assets, which allows you to trade almost any asset using both crypto and fiat. SynchroBit will change the rules of the game in trading crypto and the investment environment in general — everyone will be able to trade and invest in a wide range of cryptocurrencies, ICOs, digital assets and other tradable assets, including gold, silver, commodities, metals, etc.
The second project is Amanpuri Exchange — a DLT exchange that offers a first-class trading platform both for crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat, as well as a number of high-quality payment solutions. The ecosystem of the Amanpuri exchange provides the ability to carry out spot transactions, as well as transactions with a leverage of up to 100x, and provides complete security, focusing on 100% protection of customer assets thanks to the collaboration with leading custodians and transparency of the blockchain. In addition, by 2021, Amanpuri will provide telephone support services for customers with correspondents in several languages, including but not limited to English, Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, Hindi, Russian and Arabic.
Finally, the third project is Vectorium. This is a “double coin project” with a goal to improve the digital way of storing and distributing electricity generated from renewable sources, as well as an innovative approach to solving the huge problem of waste management, providing the opportunity to offer value through the use of blockchain.
How do you choose the projects you work with? Which factors do you take into account when assessing their potential?
The first factor is undoubtedly the product and the idea. There are projects that do not have a unique idea but possess great potential for growth. The second factor is the availability of a prototype and white paper, which sets out all the information necessary for a potential investor. The third factor is, of course, the team and their goals.
How do you tell when it is best to avoid a project? What are the “red flags” that investors should be paying attention to?
There are a number of factors to consider when analyzing a project. First of all, the website itself — whether contact details are provided in full, whether it looks trustworthy, whether it is made on a generic website builder — to sum up, the general impressions.
Secondly, it is the availability of the white paper and how detailed it is. Unfortunately, there are still project websites without this element. The white paper of the project should offer not only a rough idea, but also some real mechanisms for its implementation, as well as a detailed roadmap. In addition, the purpose of creating the project should be clear. Will it be useful for millions of people around the world, will it solve their problems? Is the project viable at all? As a matter of fact, there are a lot of really useless tokens.
Thirdly, it is necessary to understand the people behind the project, including both the team itself and the advisory board. Ideally, these people should be experts in their respective fields with prior experience in successfully launching projects. If instead of the detailed information about the team we are offered only a photo of some beautiful model from a fashion magazine with a fictional biography, this is a huge warning sign.
Finally, it is important to evaluate how open the project is to the community. Is there source code for a smart contract on GitHub, are there real-time statistics on the volume of funds raised, and what information is available on Etherscan. The larger the number of investors, the more likely the tokens will be distributed evenly.
What are the most common mistakes that the teams are making when trying to raise funds?
Well, first of all, don’t start fundraising as soon as you stumble across an idea. It is necessary to carefully think it over for a few months, possibly even years, and work out the full concept.
Secondly, you should not become fixated on a specific date, but constantly monitor the state of the market instead.
Thirdly, marketing tools change every year. What worked last year does not work this year. Carefully consider your actions.
Fourth, there are a lot of marketing agencies on the market — however, everyone has the same approach and capabilities, only the prices are different. (Laughs) It reminds me of the advertising market for YouTube bloggers. One blogger has 200 000 subscribers on the channel, but his videos do not even gain 1000 views. Many people would only look at the number of subscribers, but not at the facts. And they will be ready to pay several thousand dollars to such a “famous” YouTuber. Please check every possibility of fraud and analyze all the facts.
Finally, do not engage in “self-marketing” — if you have just entered the cryptocurrency market and have never been involved in this industry, it’s better to hire people in-house who have the competence to build and work out the architecture and the basic concept of the project. And depending on your needs and situation, you will be able to hire contractors (agencies, freelancers, etc.) in the future. Now there are a lot of scammers in this field. Project CEOs do not always evaluate all the factors carefully and are quick to agree to tempting proposals, which can only lead to failure. I will repeat myself here — analyze everything.
What are the key elements of the successful marketing campaign for a crypto project?
The current IT market and the fact that customers are increasingly connecting to the Internet make online marketing an interesting growth opportunity. But online marketing is very different in terms of approach. I can offer the following step-by-step instructions:
First step: Build an online marketing strategy. It all starts with a strategy. To win the competition, you must have a plan in advance. Set your goals: what do you want to achieve with online marketing? Think about what marketing resources you want to use for this and determine your budget. Also, do not forget to think about the target group. A study of the target group will help you divide it into subgroups.
Second step: write engaging content. Good content is the key to attracting potential investors through online marketing. The idea of good content is that you offer the reader something valuable. Therefore, it is necessary to devote time and attention to content creation.
Third step: optimize your website. Make sure that the content of your landing page matches the text of your ad and your call-to-action button. With the appropriate landing page, you guarantee a higher conversion rate and a higher score on search engines. Website optimization requires a lot of testing.
Fourth step: Organize and customize your ads. The ideal goal of internet advertising is to find potential customers who are willing to provide their contact information in exchange for content.
Finally, the fifth step: keep track of your leads with marketing automation. The advantage of this approach is that you develop the workflow once, and after that, you only need to control and optimize it.
Which social media platforms do you consider to be the most important for marketing a crypto project?
Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, Bitcoinwiki, YouTube and Medium. It should be noted that there are a lot of scammers in Telegram, but they can be avoided.
What are your professional goals for 2019? Which milestones do you hope to achieve by the end of the year?
I want to participate in exciting projects and help in their development. I did not set any specific milestones. I like my work and I am proud of what I do. I hope I will be useful to many projects in the present and in the future. Good luck to all of you!
Thank you for your time!
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